New report from DARA provides a reassessment of the human and economic costs of the climate crisis. The reassessment is based on a wealth of the latest research and scientific work on climate change and the carbon economy, research that is assimilated as a part of the report:

Climate change causes 400,000 deaths on average each year today, mainly due to hunger and communicable diseases that affect above all children in developing countries. Our present carbon-intensive energy system and related activities cause an estimated 4.5 million deaths each year linked to air pollution, hazardous occupations and cancer. Climate change caused economic losses estimated close to 1% of global GDP for the year 2010, or 700 billion dollars (2010 PPP). The carbon-intensive economy cost the world another 0.7% of GDP in that year, independent of any climate change losses.

The world is already committed to a substantial increase in global temperatures – at least another 0.5° C (1° F) due to a combination of the inertia of the world’s oceans, the slow response of the carbon cycle to reduced CO 2 emission and limitations on how fast emissions can actually be reduced.

The world economy therefore faces an increase in pressures that are estimated to lead to more than a doubling in the costs of climate change by 2030 to an estimated 2.5% of global GDP. Carbon economy costs also increase over this same period so that global GDP in 2030 is estimated to be well over 3% lower than it would have been in the absence of climate change and harmful carbon-intensive energy practices.